Horseman by Christina Henry

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

Christina Henry is one of my favourite authors without a doubt. I have enjoyed her recent journeys into entirely original work but a part of me has sorely missed her ability to adapt traditional tales with that fantastic horror spin and tone. Horseman satisfied all of those cravings and more.

Horseman is the story of Ben, a trans teenager from the town of Sleepy Hollow. The headless horseman legends have always plagued his town but things become a bit too real when the corpse of a child is found with his hands and head missing. Ben decides to investigate but is held back by his grandma and grandfather, the former of which thinks it is unladylike to traipse around the woods and the latter of which seems to have secrets of his own.

This is a largely original horror story which only uses elements of the Sleepy Hollow mythos, often to great effect. Ben was a fantastic main character and I felt the trans identity stuff fit well with the themes of the novel (take this with a pinch of salt as I am not trans). Parts of this book felt a little slow or like not a huge ton was happening, but the creepy atmosphere was always there and I was never entirely sure what was going on in a good way. The characters as always are incredibly strong and they really helped add to the compelling nature of the book.

Overall, this is a solid effort from Henry and one I definitely recommend checking out, especially around the spooky autumn season. It's an interesting story with plenty of creepy elements and a strong main character, with added trans rep as a bonus. It's not my favourite book by Henry but it's a fantastic horror book and well worth the read.

Overall Rating:

.5

Trigger warnings clarity: Lots of gore/graphic descriptions of dead bodies. Transphobia comes from characters aimed at the main character, not from the nature of the book itself. There is attempted rape

Ruthless Women by Melanie Blake

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Head of Zeus in exchange for an honest review.

This was so close to being a fun, if totally ridiculous romp. Then there was a healthy dose of transphobia and no thank you.

Most of this book can be described as a bunch of women working on a soap opera, backstabbing each other and having a lot of graphic sex. It's very ridiculous but not in an offensive way. Almost every sexual encounter starts with the woman not wearing underwear and the man noticing and then they bang. I was fairly engaged in the story and I enjoyed it a lot for what it was.

Unfortunately this book was ruined for me by a scene where someone is revealed as trans, and then the other characters proceed to threaten to out them. Every character is morally grey so it's not entirely portrayed as a triumphant moment, but the narrative does suggest we are meant to be on the side of the people doing the blackmailing. The trans character is what I would consider to be the most villainous presence and so it left me feeling very unhappy that in 2021, someone could write this with zero consideration for all the 'trans people are evil' tropes the media has used for years. It was bitterly disappointing.

Without that, the book could have easily gotten a 3.5 star rating from me. I am giving it 2 stars in an attempt to be fair because it could have been worse but dear god, it's such a shame.

Overall Rating:

Knife Edge by David Callinan

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Endeavour Media in exchange for an honest review.

Knife Edge is the story of Ella and Ed, two ugly teenagers at a posh private school full of beautiful people. A chance win at a gambling facility leaves Ella able to afford the best plastic surgery in the world, enabling her to make herself and Ed beautiful. Unfortunately things get complicated when their childhood bully, Scott Stockton enters the picture.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. The pacing is a little slow but I genuinely had no idea where it was going and the sense of horror which came from that was very enjoyable. It is a very weird story and this can make for a bit of a jarring reading experience, but once the plot kicks in properly then it becomes a very interesting tale about identity and revenge.

One thing I do have to say is this book got weirdly sexual near the end. Before the 70% mark, I'd say the only sexual aspects were plot relevant and somewhat justified by the narrative. There are two rapes in this book but both serve a narrative purpose (maybe this could have been accomplished by different acts but I'm not here to debate that). However, at the 70% mark there were some unnecessary sexual scenes which I think distracted from the actual horror of the story. The first was some characters visiting a kind of underground sex/gay club and this was full of uncomfortable characters who served no real purpose. The word transsexual is used repeatedly and the whole scene could have been cut with no harm done. The other thing which I wish wasn't in the book was a male character murdering a female character in a sexually-graphic way. It felt lazy and again, I was genuinely feeling quite tense until that happened and it just became cartoonish. These scenes both felt like they came out of nowhere and didn't fit the rest of the book for me.

That aside, Knife Edge really does have a lot to offer. The horror mostly comes from the characters but there is also plenty of violence to keep slasher fans happy. It poses some interesting philosophical debates about identity and what it means to be a good person, and it's definitely not a book I'll be forgetting in a hurry.

   Overall Rating:

.5

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Grove Press in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, where to start with this book. I have labelled it a 'DNF' but I did actually pretty much read all of it, I just wanted to DNF it so many times. I requested this book after reading an excerpt and I'm ashamed to say I wish I hadn't. The unusual writing style caught my eye and I thought the plot had huge potential. This is kind of a futuristic retelling of Frankenstein based around sex bots and AI? Honestly I don't know what was going on with this book. The plot became really hard to follow due to the writing style and there were flashback chapters to Mary Shelley which just made me confused and bored. There is however a much bigger problem with this book.

It's transphobic. Very transphobic.

Initially I was excited to read about a trans doctor as the protagonist. Unfortunately the language surrounding the discussion of this character is rife with unfortunate implications. Ry frequently describes himself as now identifying as a man (Ry is a female-to-male trans character) but then explains that he is a hybrid and still a woman and not a real man and aaaaah. Gender fluidity is absolutely a thing and I would happily read about a gender fluid character but this is done all wrong if that's what the author was going for.

This trans character is also specifically fetishised for being a 'hybrid' by his male doctor partner. There is a lot of discussion about genitals etc and this was extremely uncomfortable to read about. I really think more research should have been done because I found this book incredibly problematic so I can't imagine how it would read to a trans audience (Although I did float a few of the problematic things past my trans friends to check I wasn't being unfair. They all agreed that this sounded AWFUL).

Terrible transphobia aside, this book is just super dull. I did skimread until the end and at 80% through, nothing had really happened yet. It's such a shame because I could have really gotten into this book but ultimately, it felt like it was trying too hard to be literary.

Overall Rating: